


home from the hospital

by Duck_Life



Category: X-Factor (Comics)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Infant Death, Stillbirth, Trauma, X-Factor Investigations, you know what happened idk what to tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-25 00:15:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20367466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Theresa recovers after losing her baby.





	home from the hospital

Rictor is the one who drives her back home from the hospital. After everything that’s happened, and with her stitches, she’s not exactly up for flying. 

Besides, she’s pretty sure if she tries to use her sonic scream right now, she won’t ever stop screaming. 

Ric drives slower than he normally does, using extra caution at each turn. Terry isn’t really sure why. She did buy that ‘baby on board’ window cling, but now it seems she won’t be needing it. Tipping her head back against the seat, she tries not to think.

“I’ll kill him, if you want.”

They’re stopped at a light, and she’s not 100% sure she heard Rictor right. “Hm?”

“I’ll kill him. Madrox,” he clarifies. “I know Monet will help.” He glances at her face, gauging her reaction before the light turns green, and then he returns his gaze to the road. “I… I’m not just sayin’ that. I mean it. What he did to you… to your kid… I will kill him.”

Terry shifts in her seat. “Sean… Sean was his, too.”

“No,” Rictor says, jaw clenched tight. “No, you… a dupe got you pregnant. Because Jamie was too fucking drunk out of his mind to control himself. Or… him _ selves _ .” Rictor seethes. “Why do we let him do this shit? The motherfucker pushed me off a fucking ledge and I still signed up. Why do we put up with all the bullshit that Jamie and his dupes…  _ inflict _ ?”

“Where else would we go?” Terry sighs. “What else would we do? You and me… we don’t have the temperament to be X-Men. And I don’t want to be on some black ops kill-squad like Jimmy and Domino.”

Rictor raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think we’re s’posed to know about that.” 

“Jimmy tells me everything,” she shrugs. “He… he was so happy for me, when I told him about the baby. I was worried he’d be, y’know, weird about it, but he wasn’t. H-he was goin’ to be Uncle Jimmy. He…” Since getting her stitches repaired, Terry has been holding it together pretty well, all things considered. Even when she snapped Jamie’s finger, her voice remained calm, her eyes dry. 

That reprieve doesn’t last, and she feels the pain, the rawness and the  _ loss _ hit her once again like a monsoon. “He even bought a wee little onesie for the… oh,  _ Christ _ ,” she weeps, pulling at her hair. Rictor looks at her and then makes the decision, pulls off the road and parks on the shoulder. 

“Hey,” he mumbles, clumsily reaching out to his old friend. “I’m here.”

“Oh,  _ God _ ,” she wails. “I was ready… I had everything ready, all his clothes and his diapers and the stupid fucking diaper genie. I had… I had the stroller, and the carseat. Wh-why did this happen?” 

“I don’t know,” Rictor says, holding her as she shakes with sobs. The soundwaves are making the whole car tremble, but he doesn’t let go. “I don’t know.”

“I never got a mum,” she says suddenly, because these are wounds that cut decades deep. “I never got to have a mother, and now I don’t get my baby.  _ Why _ ?” 

Rictor doesn’t know how to answer her. 

* * *

Ric’s door is already open a crack. Without bothering to knock, Terry nudges it open all the way. Rictor is propped up on his bed, flipping through a Walking Dead comic. “Yeah?”

“I need your help,” she says bluntly. 

“Anything.” It’s been less than 24 hours since Sean Madrox was reabsorbed. Rictor’s been alternating between trying to give his teammate space and watching her closely to make sure she’s going to be alright. 

“I need to put you in charge of two things,” Terry says. “You can’t let me drink. And you can’t let me call Wade.”

Rictor coughs. “Wade as in Deadpool? Why would you call him?”

Theresa sighs, combing her fingers through her rat’s nest of hair. It’s been days since she last washed it. “He and I have this… mutually destructive, messed-up  _ thing _ where we seek each other out to prove to ourselves that there’s somebody out there more fucked-in-the-head than us. We go to each other when we’re at our lowest. And I’ve never been lower than I am right now.”

“Got it,” Rictor says. “I won’t let you call him.” 

She hesitates in the doorway, and then she walks farther into the room and sits down on the bed beside him. “Ric… Julio… I’m really glad that you’re on the team,” she says, staring at one wall of his room. 

“Hey,” Rictor says, patting her knee clumsily. “X-Force sticks together, yeah?”

* * *

Surrounded by the detritus of nine months of preparation, Terry fumbles with her cell phone. Her back is pressed to the wall and her knees are drawn up toward her chest, and the crib she purchased second-hand sits beside her. 

She was going to make a mobile to hang above the crib. She had a website bookmarked about how to DIY mobiles for a nursery, and she was planning to make one before the baby came, but then there wasn’t time… 

The phone rings twice before a familiar voice answers. “’Lo?”

She lets out a shaky breath before speaking, cradling the phone. “... Uncle Tom? It’s me, Terry.” 

“Theresa! Lass, it’s good to… I mean… hang on…” Fumbling, rustling. She imagines him putting out his pipe, sitting up straighter in his chair. “How are you doing?”

“Um… well, I…” She can’t help it. She starts crying again. “I was… It’s my baby,” she says between stifled sobs. “I had a baby, and I… I lost him. He died. He’s gone.”

Silence on the other end. Maybe he’s angry she never told him she was expecting. Maybe… But those worries when Tom says only, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through, darlin’.” And for a moment, the years and miles between them don’t so much matter. The lies and villainy fade to the background. 

No, she didn’t have a mum or dad growing up. She had her uncle. She has him now, when the world seems like it’s going to end. She has him promising her that things will be okay someday, and that her lost child is with Maeve up in heaven. 

* * *

The next day, Theresa takes all the baby things to the nearest Goodwill and drops them off. She keeps a few things— the onesie from Jimmy, a baby blanket that Rahne knitted, a pair of green booties. 

And she isn’t okay, not now, not yet, but she’s alive. She’s sober. She isn’t possessed by a malevolent entity or recovering from vocal cord injuries. 

It’s a start. 


End file.
